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EvidenceNOW: Tools and Resources

The Agency for Healthcare and Quality (AHRQ) offers practical, research-based tools and other resources to help a variety of health care origanizations, provider, and others make care safer in all health care settings. AHRQ's evidence-based tools and resources are used by organizations nationwide to improve the quality, safety, effectiveness, and efficiency of health care. Improving health care quality by increasing the capacity of small primary care practices to implement the best clinical evidence is our aim. These tools and resources can be searched by the key drivers and the change strategies of the EvidenceNOW Key Driver Diagram.

This short tool describes OARS—a set of verbal and non-verbal communication skills that helps clinicians and educators in primary care practices to engage and build rapport with patients and assess their needs.

This care planning worksheet helps primary care practices and their patients together develop a plan of action to manage hypertension, complete with an assessment of readiness to make changes and patient-set goals.

This module briefly describes eight steps primary care practices can take to form and work with a Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC), including preparing a PFAC action plan, charter, and budget; selecting improvement projects; and tracking results.

This resource summarizes proven ways to communicate to patients and families about the importance of evidence-based care and the implications for their health. It includes examples of practice mission statements that convey that message.

This toolkit outlines seven steps for implementing a patient decision-support framework in primary care. It includes checklists, links to online tutorials for clinicians, and other tools for integrating decision aids into clinical care.

These presentation slides describe four non-prescriptive motivational interviewing strategies that clinicians and primary care practice staff can use to help patients identify and resolve ambivalence in the daily health choices they make.